Show HN: Fast Incremental Plaintext Searcher | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Fast Incremental Plaintext Searcher

ksylvestre.itch.io

18 pointsksylvestre9 comments

I’ve overhauled the demo distributables based on user feedback. The MacOS version is now a signed disk image. Although the Linux version is a Debian package, It can be ran directly on any distro with glibc 2.17 or higher

Open articleView on HN

How does this compare to ugrep or others?

Fast text search is really valuable -- if we could see comparisons it would help make judgements about which to use.

Although it looks like a console/TUI application it is a GUI one. The underlying search engine is nothing new (PCRE2 JIT). Primary benefits revolve around having options be instantly discoverable instead of queryable behind a man page. Things that would of taken grep/find/fzf are wrapped up into one application. Here are some of the key features:

- Export results to file/clipboard/pipe

- Bookmarks: saved search presets

- Full search history (entries of source/filter/pattern)

- Built-in preview window

- Editor commands to jump to found matches (ex: gvim '$filepath' +$line)

- Drag/Drop found matches to an open text editor

- File dialog to select start directory

- Tab cycling of source filenames (console emulation)

- Logical operators coming soon (AND OR NOT XOR)

I suggest trying the free demo to get a better feel for the application.

Clean interface(*). Seems fast - does it index files ? (* nicer than grepWin (GPL) - more like BareGrep without source)

Comparing with others: ripgrep (MIT) mention filtering and shell completions, ugrep (MIT) - including a file indexer, searching in archives and fuzzy search, dnGrep (GPL3) - archives, s&r+undo, (as well) to line results in external editor and XPath.

Unfortunately can't test it. Virustotal says it's not network shy (IP Traffic) and unsafe (3/75 security vendors flagged this file as malicious) :(

Funny you should mention BareGrep, the goal of this application was to make my own version of it with the features I wanted. No indexing, PCRE2 JIT search engine. Certain security vendors have been a thorn in my side ever since the beginning, I've reached out to see why they consistently flag my program but get crickets in response (Some of which don't even maintain a valid website certificate, see MaxSecure). I have a clickable hyperlink to the linked project page under Help > About MightyGrep menu, that's my guess as to what's flagging the IP traffic. There isn't any "phoning home" if that's what you're concerned about.

Could you maybe provide a portable version as well ? - it's usually less flagged (less overhead) and easier to check which file could be an offender.

BTW I'm using Everything Search with a column (!) showing content of a file with higlighted search terms - but there is no jump to line in preview option (as well new version changes accestimes).

The windows demo is a standalone 32 bit executable. The installer version is only available for premium users. I might toggle some features to test what is tripping the antivirus, it would be much nicer if they told me what the categories mean (what do I do with Trojan.Malware.300983.susgen???).

How are you checking the access time? File Explorer's "Properties" window changes the access time in Windows 10, that tripped me up during development.

With Everything (sorted by time is live ) 1.4 or in Far Manager. v1.5 Alpha is kind of using more of properties even if I don't want (?). edit: or a column in Explorer.

Without comparison to leading tools like ripgrep, the_silver_searcher and ugrep, this project will remain a passing curiosity.

$10 is nothing and I already forgot how much did the restaurant dinner last night cost me, but I don't want to give money without knowing what am I getting in little more details and/or user-friendly marketing like tool comparison.

Fwiw regarding knowing what you're getting - there is a free demo available.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com